Oak Bark

[bitshird]

I felled a very large Red Oak tree last week, nearly 4 ft diameter! allot of rotten very punky wood near the top, maybe usable for worthless wood near the stump, which we cut off at the ground level there is some interesting grain, I wondered if I should remove the bark, after I split some of the 18 inch thick slab, there is some spalting in the sapwood, and a couple of burls where branches had broken off, (the tree was about 150 years old) a few limbs that came off a few months ago already had some spalting, they were still very wet, I covered the ends with latex paint, do I need to remove the bark to help it dry?

 

[low_48]

The biggest advantage to removing the bark will be to keep the insect population a little lower. If there is rot, and bark, there will always be some bugs. Nearly all the moisture loss if from the end grain. That's why we have to seal that, so the drying will slow and minimize checking.